olympics Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Unfortunately, I did not manage to catch this extended TV spot for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button during NBC's Olympic coverage, though, luckily, one person did. I imagine this will eventually become the film's second trailer, and it'll hopefully arrive online in a higher quality at some point this week, but for the time being you can scope out a somewhat decent (except for the annoying beeps here and there) video of the spot above (courtesy of The Tube).

Some of what's included here is also in the film's first trailer (catch that in HD on the flick's official website), but we also have a bunch more dialogue, tons of amazing visuals and .... well, watch for yourself. While you never know what the final product will deliver, I can say this film is showing some tremendous, buzz-worthy promise right now -- especially with a director like David Fincher and a cast that includes Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett (last time these two shared the screen, Babel was nominated for seven Oscars). Needless to say, I'm preemptively putting this on my top ten list for 2008 and crossing my fingers at the same time.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button arrives in theaters on December 19.

Did you know that there was a Brazilian bobsled team competing in Turin? Me either. We'll be hearing all about it in a few years, though, when the movie comes out. Clearly inspired by the wild success of Cool Runnings, Eric Maleson, the founder and president of the Brazilian Ice Sports Federation, has sold the rights to his sweet-and-odd life story, which will be rewritten by Tom Musca and turned into a movie called Better than Gold.

The movie will focus on Maleson's experiences in the US in the 1980s, when he met his wife and, with her, became obsessed with bobsledding. Well, to each his own, right? The two married during the bobsled races in Salt Lake City four years ago, when the Brazilian team made its first appearance, and Maleson is currently leading the team - the only South American bobsledders in the Olympics - in Turin.

The movie is expected to have a budget of about $10 million, and the outrageously hot Rodrigo Santoro is in negotiations to play Maleson and make him seem much more attractive than he actually is.

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

-- W.H. Auden, September 1, 1939

Steven Spielberg's Munich begins at the 1972 Olympics, where a group of men hesitate at the locked gates of the Olympic Village. A group of American athletes also approaching the gates laugh – should have gotten back from the beer garden earlier, guys – and then help the men over the gate so they can get into the compound. Once inside, the men take off their athletic jackets, put on ski masks, take AK-47 rifles from their bags, enter the building where Israel's athletes are housed … and enter history.

Munich is not the story of what happened that day – although Spielberg captures the tension and terror of the subsequent siege and deaths like the master craftsman he is. That story has been told – and told superbly – in the Oscar-winning documentary One Day in September. Munich is the story of what happened after: how Israel determined that such an affront could not go unpunished, and created a group – a hit squad – to find, and kill, the men responsible. Driven by recent history, many filmmakers and films  – including Spielberg's too-swiftly dismissed War of the Worlds – are trying to construct allegories for the realities we now face. With Munich, Spielberg's trying something far riskier, and far more audacious: Turning the real into an allegory. Spielberg doesn't attain greatness here, but the attempt is fascinating to watch.